Silencing the iHumans "your copying apple" critics

Windows 7 is looking amazing, but, their departure from the traditional start menu / taskbar to the new more functional version have had some people calling "copy" of the OSx Dock

Not withstanding that my Linux machine has both a taskbar and a dock and no one cares... 

Hmmm - icons on the bar at the bottom - similar - Win 7 has the "peak" feature but some could argue this is just a different way of implementing OSx's "expose" feature...

but hang on... did Mac have a icon doc from the start?

Above is Windows 2.0 notice a rather obvious (if basic) "dock" 

The fact is Windows had a dock style icon tray originally and Mac had a similar icon ribbon. The two OS's have copied each other for so long now they can't remember who copied who... and linux shamelessly rips off both while also offering versions that are unlike anything else... and as macs not run on PC and PC's run on Macs... well its not going to be long before there is little difference. Remember MS has a large share in Apple ... 

Plug and Play vs Plug and Pray

Remember the dark days of windows when everything you plugged into it wouldn't work - you would take hours with serial ports, adapters and config files ... Mac of course back then would tell you you didn't need drivers, that you just plugged things in and they worked. Not strickly true... infact you could just only use the hardware Apple sold you. Windows said you could use anything... but it didn't give you an easy time of doing so.

Then they invented things like USB... and Windows Vista.

Even XP wasn't truely plug and play flawless, usually it'd involve a manual driver install, or a regedit in some cases. And of course, just like on Linux/OSx - you have to stop/unmount a device before you could unplug it. 

In Vista this has been done away with and you can hot swap USB devices to your hearts content. Something I keep forgetting in the other 2 and get shouty error messages.

So - today I got a new webcam... well I say new, it was off a guy at work, for a 5er and came with no box or CD what so ever. So I figured I'd have to go hunting for some drivers.... wrong.

Plugged it into Vista - it saw it was logitech and went to their site (all in the background while I was working) found the driver, even found the support software and IM pluggins, installed the lot, was working about 2 minuets later! Fantastic.

Tried the same feat on Linux however... oh dear. 

Didn't even mount the USB device at all, rebooted with it attached and it could see it in a shell having typed 'lsusb' but couldnt do anything with it. No problem I throught - I'll just go to synaptic and type Logitech Driver... no... no results... webcam?... no.

right - ubuntu support forums it was then. after several cmd line sollutions and a few downloads, it still dosn't work.

Linux it seems is 100% Plug'n'FAIL! compatable.

Pause/Break for thought

“There are only two kinds of OS's: the ones people moan about and the ones nobody uses.”

Linux vs Vista - on the road

Well assuming my battery holds out we're road testing Linux Ubuntu vs Windows Vista on the Costa Brava in Spain.

It's the first time this Acer laptop has connected to a wireless network I don't control and the first time it's had to run on battey for a long time, so how do they stack up:

Battery life: 

Linux claims my battery has 1 hour 30 minutes from 100% charge, and this counts down in real time, this is with power saving set up and screen at it's lowest brightness.

Conversly, in power saver mode, Vista can squeeze 2 hours 35 minuets.... and yes it does actually manage it. 

with linux claiming I have 30 minuets left I have switched to Vista and now have 50...

Wireless:

Although both OS's can see and connect to the hotel wireless, which is hardly surprising... Vista has better signal strength (assuming one can belive it's own estimates)... it is, however, a little more annoying to connect to this alien network. 

Linux has already connected to the strongest wireless network by the time it's booted up, Vista requires you to ask it to - fair enough, but then having to resure it you meant to connect to an unsecure network is a little niggle, as it having to set what type of network this is (private, public etc)

All these features are there - of course - to stop your average numpty who baught a computer at PC world from getting their computer fux0rd by someone/thing/themselves. Where as it takes  a fair amount of computer litteracy to install linux let alone install the relavent network managers to get the wireless working... so no need to assume your user is to stupid to look after themselves online.

Misc 

Linux does have a nice feature with it's time/date in that once told where you are (picked from a list of cities) not only does it adjust it's time settings for the local difference, but calls up a weather report and other local data that can be got at from the task bar. Cute.

Over all I've been switching between OS's at will but favoring Vista for it's better battery life. Once again the biggest thing seperating these two rivals is MS's need to make a computer that protects the dumbest user from themselves, to the slight annoyance of those with common sense.

Now, if only I could find why Linux has eaten an entire setof files and directorys from my desktop...

Mac, "It just works" amazingly does

So I've switched routers today...

Where my internet was supplied by cable, feeding into a top of the range Netgear, seven aireal wireless cable router, I now find the house using an older standard one aireal ADSL router/modem...

Fine, as the speed of the connection has gone from 2 - 8mbps (although we don't actually get that, even in central London)

However, today is a sad day for Windows... what where Microsoft playing at?

although wirelessly Vista has no problems connecting to the new router - and actually offered better signal than the linux counterpart, the Win/Mac desktop, plugged in by RJ45 Ethernet connection has lead to a mine field.

Although my windows machine performed flawlessly with the expensive cable router, it seems for some reason to refuse to fully connect to the internet via the older ADSL router. This problem had been blamed on the drivers for the LAN adapter, but updating those didn't seem to make a difference.

So, in an effort to prove the problem was with the router/cable I booted up the Hackintosh... If anything was going to FAIL it would be the OS with the least debug/maintainance options, however Apple pulled a doozie on me.

The Hack connected...

Apparently 'It just works' - annoying to say the least, but kudos to the Mac, we have to give credit here, Mac and Linux could connect to the older router where Vista had problems...

It seems the problem is NIC controlers where Vista dosn't have some of the older ones... a simple fix, but you have to question MS's logic - it knows it's onto a good thing with it's new OS but is dosn't think to make sure it works with older tech... Lets hope they fix this by windows 7 (which looks great) because you just lost a point to Apple Mac of all things... serious shame on Windows!

6 months in

So it's been around 6 months since we started with all 3 and most of that has been spent watching ihumans and linux-heads argue over which is better, the only thing they agree on is that they're better than Windows (which they have never used) - so here goes, a true, 6 months of living with, test to get us started.

LINUX: Ubuntu Studio:

So Studio isn't as supported as the main Ubuntu version, but the Linux Distro that claims it's "for humans" impresses ALOT! it does all the stuff Windows machines do normally (surf the web) and Office like features are easily duplicated with Open Office, which is a dream to install via the Package Manager that comes with alot of modern Linux. Visually it looks nearly as good as Vista with a few graphic manager installs. Which is very comendable

Thats where is ends however... I use this system for most of my webbrowsing as it's pretty virus safe being Linux, but ultimatly it dosn't run anything I would use a real PC for, Wine would offer some cross compatability but I find everything I run through that to be slower than just using Vista in the first place. Finally the reliance on command line for almost all hardware fixes, and the attitude of the resulting support forums, ensures it's status as only something at leat a mild level geek can use.

WINDOWS:

Vista, 32bit Home Profesional to be procises

First: why make so many versions? pointless to my mind. Second, all those 'Protect the computer from a user who is a total retard' type things are really annoying, but then as most computer users are total retards MS has to try and protect itself.

However, once you turn off UAC it's a damn fine system! much better than the look of XP -"my first fisherprice windows" with its giant green and red buttons...

Vista is alot more stable as well, belive it or not it has crashed maybe 3 times since I got it - where as the Mac crashes once every week and the linux system dies every time it tries to open a mpg or wmv...

Looking at it Vista looks great, it now takes anything with or without a driver (I plugged in a 5 year old scanner and it knew it straight off) and dosn't worry about ejecting/unmounting things you plug in, whip USB devices in and out at will (somthing that will crash the Linux and Mac machines)

MAC OSX(86) "Hackingtosh"

The fact it's so hard to run this OS on any system, when Windows and Linux (which OSx is basically a very expensive flavor of) is a testerment in itself. Apple - who have the cheek to call MS a monopoly, controle all stages of Mac production and sell exclusivly.

However their OS is basically Linux and they run on PC hardware, they just charge you a fortune for the prevalage.

I run OSx for the dependent software: namely Final Cut Pro and Shake, and while the OS is prettier than Linux, it's not as stable (now before we start I've had such stability issues on proper dedicated Macs so it's wide spread) It's simpler and uglier than Vista (although not as RAM hungry) and seems designed to just do a few things well. If you have no idea how to use a computer and you just want to do a few thing Apple has prescribed to you: this is for you.

I have heard OSx described as a tricycle, this is pretty spot on. It does all a child could want, and wont fall over, but does nothing for an adult who wants to go faster.

Right now we're writing this in Linux because it's dropped out of playing a DVD and started playing in it ultra-high saturation, no rhyme or reason why... although worryingly I've started to take that as normal from Linux :-s

So whats the setup?

Well lets look at this, We're down basically to DOS and Unix,

We're running 2 PC's here, a top of the range quad core desktop and a pretty impressive dual core Acer laptop.

The desktop is running Windows Vista, and as it was designed to run it, (unlike most of the Vista machines people will bitch about) it's running very well. This system is also running OSx86 - the Mac OS designed, by a community of VERY clever people who I appluad, to run on PC hardware... Now most iHumans will at this point declare all comparisons invalid, but hang on, I use Windows and Linux on generic PC hardware, Mac's now run on Intel chipsets, and like Linux are Unix based systems, so if their only claim to superiority is they are a monoploy in terms of hardware production then they fall at the first hurdle!

Lets go on,

The seconds system is a powerful Acer laptop running Vista (again very well) and Ubuntu Studio - an impressive Distro of Linux for those in the creative media field as it offeres real time rendering as a functing of the whole OS! very nice.

The entire set up was thus: £500 for the desktop (which I admit was the result of a bargin as it reatails at £1,500) and £300 for the laptop, Linux is of course free and OSx has a licence fee, but over all I have spent nearly 1/3 of the price a Mac Desktop of the same spec and a Macbook would have cost. Considering I'm getting all the adcvantages of all thre OS's I would queston the point of buying a Mac right there...